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GAMEDAY ONE (August 9th)

M.M. 5-9 GOT – P.o.t.G: Alexander Arnold (SS, GOT) – 3/4, 3B, 3 R, 1 RBI
K.C. 6-4 P.J. – P.o.t.G: James Blanchard (PH, K.C.) – 2-run H.R. in top of 9th to put K.C. ahead
F.C. 7-12 STJ – P.o.t.G: Nelson Townsend (LF, STJ) – 3/5, 1 R, 4 RBI

The Tucker-Wheaton Cup started with Merrimack Mills playing in New York City at Gotham. The hosts scored four times in the bottom of the 2nd to go ahead 4-1 and led the rest of the way, with the closest M.M. could come being 6-5 in the 7th inning before Gotham scored three more times to guarantee the victory.

Kings County at Port Jersey was an exciting affair. Kings Co. scored twice in the top of the 2nd to go ahead 4-1, with hosts Port Jersey clawing back runs until it was 4-4 at the end of the 7th. In the top of the 9th, backup 3B James Blanchard entered as a Pinch Hitter for James Heilman with a runner on and hit a two-run homer to give Kings Co. a 6-4 lead, which held thanks to a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th by Rainer van der Hout.

Defending champs St. John’s wasted little time getting their cup defense off on the right foot, scoring eleven times over the first five innings against Flour City, with the lead growing as large as 12-3 before the visitors scored late consolation runs.

GAMEDAY TWO (August 10th)

P.J. 2-8 GOT – P.o.t.G: Luc Billon (LF, GOT) – 2/4, 2B, 2 R, 2 RBI
K.C. 8-6 STJ – P.o.t.G: P.O. Bakken (SS, K.C.) – 3/5, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 SB
M.M. 10-12 F.C. – P.o.t.G: Obelix Tsiaris (CF, F.C.) – 4/5, 2B, 3B, 3 R, 2 RBI, SB

Port Jersey was determined to make up for last year’s 2-8 showing in the T.W.C, but a poor performance at Gotham quickly put them at two losses in this edition. Gotham scored five times in the second inning, the key hit being a two-run Hamish Barclay double, and the hosts were never in any trouble.

Kings County took the battle of the offensive titans against St. John’s in Providence, in a back-and-forth contest. K.C. scored three times in the top of the 2nd, with St. John’s taking the lead via four runs in the bottom of the 3rd. Run trading over the middle innings left the score 7-6 to K.C. after six, and after two quiet innings K.C. scored in the 9th to seal the victory.

While K.C. at St. John’s was expected to be the offensive battle of the day, Flour City’s 12-10 win over Merrimack Mills was where the most runs were. After Merrimack went up 4-0 in the top of the 4th F.C. scored eleven runs over their next three times to bat, and that was enough to secure the result with help from an outstanding performance by Obelix Tsiaris

GAMEDAY THREE (August 11th)

GOT 13-9 STJ – P.o.t.G: Joseph Dalton (3B, GOT) – 3/4, 3B, 1 R, 3 RBI
K.C. 18-10 F.C. – P.o.t.G: Jesse Johnson (LF, K.C.) – 4/5, 3 R, 5 RBI
M.M. 13-10 P.J. – P.o.t.G: Leonard Popa (CF, M.M.) – 4/6, 2B, 3B, 1 R, 6 RBI

Gotham won big to open Gameday Three, scoring a dozen times from the 4th through the 7th against struggling St. John’s pitching to take the victory in Providence. The home side was dangerous on the basepaths, but they undid any good work performed by allowing five stolen bases and committing an extremely uncharacteristic nine fielding errors.

Kings Co. at Flour City was a wild one – the score 11-10 to K.C. after the teams combined to score thirteen runs in the fourth inning. Unfortunately for the hosts they could not muster any runs after K.C. relief man Jack Davis entered, and a five-run 7th inning by K.C. featuring five run-scoring singles put the game to bed. While Jesse Johnson earned P.o.t.G. honors thanks to five R.B.I, Cormack Alexander was 5/6 with two runs and a pair of R.B.I. as well.

It looked for most of the proceedings at Hoboken & Oakland Park like Port Jersey would achieve its first win of the T.W.C, as they had an 8-6 lead after the end of the 7th inning. However, a late collapse led to seven Merrimack Mills runs over the final two innings, with Leonard Popa’s triple in the top of the 8th being the key hit in Merrimack’s first win of the tourney.

GAMEDAY FOUR (August 12th)

P.J. 7-9 STJ – P.o.t.G: Nelson Townsend (LF, STJ) – 2/5, 2 R, 2 RBI
K.C. 12-7 M.M. – P.o.t.G: Jerald Peterson (3B, K.C.) – 3/4, 2B, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI
F.C. 7-11 GOT – P.o.t.G: Taliesin Buckley (CF, GOT) – 3/4, HR, 3 R, 3 RBI, 1 BB

It was not pretty, but St. John’s moved back into the win column against hapless Port Jersey. After the visitors scored four in the top of the 1st, St. John’s evened the score by the end of the third and a five-run rally in the bottom of the 6th gave them the runs they needed to secure the result. St. John’s was greatly aided by eight Port Jersey fielding errors.

Kings Co. moved to 4-0 with a five-run win at Merrimack Mills in which most of the action came late. With the score 4-3 to K.C. heading into the 7th inning, K.C. scored eight runs over the next two innings, with Jerald Peterson’s two-run home run in the 8th placing the game out of reach for Merrimack.

Gotham went up early against Flour City with a three-run 1st, but F.C. took the lead with a four-run 4th. Gotham took the lead back in the 5th thanks to a Taliesin Buckley home run, but the visitors tied the game in the 7th with a pair of run-scoring singles. Then, Gotham scored five times in the 7th and that was that. Like Kings County, Gotham was 4-0.

GAMEDAY FIVE (August 13th)

STJ 9-7 K.C. – P.o.t.G: Konrad Jensen (2B, STJ) – 2/5, 2 RBI, 2 SB, GW HIT IN 9TH
F.C. 5-15 M.M. – P.o.t.G: Leslie Arnett (2B, M.M.) – 4/5, 2B, 3 R, 1 RBI, 2 SB
GOT 4-9 P.J. – P.o.t.G: Seth Guzik (CF, P.J.) – 2/4, HR, 2 R, 4 RBI

In the second battle of offensive giants, St. John’s reversed the result from Gameday Two and handed Kings County their first loss of the cup. The hosts scored single runs in four of the first five innings and took a 4-0 lead into the 7th, but St. John’s tied the game in short order with four runs over just eight batsmen in the top of the 7th. Kings Co. took the lead back with three runs in the bottom half of the 7th before St. John’s scored twice in the 8th to make it 7-6 and set up a nervy finish. The visitors tied the score again in the 9th before Konrad Jensen’s two-run single gave them the lead and the victory.

It took Merrimack Mills a while, but they eventually broke down and battered Flour City. The score was 3-0 after five innings before five Merrimack runs in the 6th and seven more in the 8th gave the hosts a ten-run victory.

Port Jersey finally took their first win of the cup in the game against Gotham, and it did not take long at all to secure the result. P.J. scored seven times in the bottom of the 1st, the key hit being Seth Guzik’s three-run home run, twice more in the third to take a 9-0 lead, and they sat back from there to take an easy five-run victory.

The standings after Gameday Five of the Tucker-Wheaton Cup were as follows:

TEAM				W	L	GB	  R	 RA	 RD
KINGS CO.			4	1	--	 51	 36	+15
GOTHAM				4	1	--	 45	 32	+13
ST. JOHN’S			3	2	 1	 45	 42	 +3
MERRIMACK			2	3	 2	 50	 48	 +2
PORT JERSEY			1	4	 3	 32	 40	 -8
FLOUR CITY			1	4	 3	 41	 66	-25

Kings Co. & Gotham both won their first four games before dropping their fifth, and halfway through the cup the two New York metropolitan area teams looked like the class of the competition. St. Johns’ attack looked about as good as it had during last year’s 9-1 cup run, but their lack of pitching during the season was coming back to bite them. Merrimack was in the exact spot they were in last year: 2-3 and alone in 4th place after five games, albeit with a much better run differential (+5 vs -8). Port Jersey was once again 1-4 after five games in spite of having the best record in the N.B.B.O, but they were in 5th instead of 6th because Flour City was allowing a whopping 13.2 runs per game over the first half of the competition.

Over the first five days of the Tucker-Wheaton Cup, the six teams were scoring an average of 8.8 runs per game, a massive increase over the regular season average of 7.2 and a full forty percent higher than the 6.3 runs per game teams scored in last year’s Tucker-Wheaton Cup. This year’s cup entrants combined had a total of two All-Star pitchers, and without the superstars like Jim Creighton, John McGowan, & Grover Wright that last year’s cup had the batsmen were stealing the show.